Schools that work for kids – Eric Sheninger – TEDxBurnsvilleED

Update: This information is still relevant pre-service pack 1 for Office 2013. Since the service pack release, SkyDrive Pro now has been renamed to OneDrive for Business and the standalone download has been repackaged also.

If you’ve worked with the new SharePoint 2013 Server you will have most likely come across the new synchronised storage feature that Microsoft has launched in the ‘My Site’ service application. This new feature is called SkyDrive Pro and is underpinned by the same technologies used to deliver the consumer equivalent cloud service called ‘SkyDrive’.

This synced storage concept is great, although to actually sync your files, currently you need to install Microsoft Office 2013 to access the new SkyDrive Pro client. This new client ships with the Office suite and replaces the SharePoint Workspace 2010 product; which has been noted as ‘discontinued’ in future Office releases although supported until Office 2010 becomes end-of-life.

There is news from the SharePoint Team regarding the release of a stand-alone free download to enable users to install the SkyDrive Pro client without the need to upgrade the whole Office suite. Until then I have a quick workaround to deploy the SkyDrive Pro client to your workstations. This might technically be in breach of the EULA if the computer your deploying SkyDrive Pro to is not already covered under an existing SA agreement or licensed to use Office 2013 appropriately. Until the official download is available from Microsoft; consider this in terms of licensing as if your installing the full Office product for that device.

The Workaround

Copy your Office 2013 media to a network share, and launch the Office Customization Tool (OCT). To launch the OCT you need to run the following command: Setup.exe /admin

Inside the OCT you need to customise the feature installation states to reflect only the SkyDrive Pro 2013, and choose to not install any other options. You may leave all other customisations un-touched.See screenshot below:

Now save the customisations to a .MSP file. Click the File menu and choose the save option. Save your MSP file in the directory called “Updates” from within the location where you copied the Office installation media on the network file server.

Now when you run Setup.exe in standard mode, setup will take the customisation file placed in the Updates folder and execute setup based on the options defined in the customisation file.

Additional Notes on using the OCT:

For those who are not familiar with the OCT, you must understand that the Setup.exe program can only accept one customisation file. You must not place more than one .MSP file in the Updates folder otherwise your setup might fail or unexpected installation results will occur.

If you wish to have multiple customisation files for different Office deployments, store them in a shared folder outside of the Office installation media share. You can then use the switch /adminfile “\\server\share\custom.msp” where you place your path to the customisation file when running Setup.exe.

This information is specific to the 32-bit version of Office 2013, the process is similar for the x64 build but you must create a separate customisation file using the x64 Setup.exe program. The customisation files are not cross-architecture compatible.

Thanks Hans. As Hans points out in this blog post; Microsoft as of yesterday (20/5/13) now released the stand-alone SkyDrive Pro Client. I will post an update to this article now. Much appreciate the tip!

That’s interesting, I have taken a closer look at the standalone EXE’s and they seem to extract out similar to the Office 2013 media does. At a first guess you might be able to still create a standard MSP package using the OCT following common process that is configured to force the silent install and other customisations for SkyDrive Pro bits only then place this MSP in the ‘Updates’ folder from the extracted standalone EXE and see what happens. I will do some further investigation, test my theory and reply back with a result.

I built msp version using OCT tool, I selected to only install SkyDrive and not to uninstall any Office 2010 products as this is requirement. My problem is that after silent installation, Outlook 2010 crushes on start, it requires Repair. After that, old SharePoint workspace is default sync app again. Another repair on Office 2013 will make sync through SkyDrive but Outlook crashes again. I am after silent OneDrive client installation. What are my options?

Hi Anna, Sorry for the slow response. I understand what your talking about, the challenge with OneDrive / SkyDrive client in Office 2013 is that it actually still ships out from Microsoft as the GROOVE.exe process which happens to be the same process that SharePoint Workspace ran as in Office 2010. This presents the problem in that the new client is supposed to supersede or upgrade SharePoint Workspace so running the two together on the same machine would not be recommended. Is it a requirement that SharePoint Workspace remains in your deployment?

Looking for something?

About Me

Hi my name is Tim, I am a I.T Consultant with over 15 years of industry-based experience and founder/owner of Raines Internet Solutions. Raines Internet Solutions delivers cloud-based software/services, managed I.T solutions and specialised consultancy services.

I have extensive experience with the successful delivery of I.T solutions and projects in enterprise environments; with particular interest in the Education sector. I also enjoy listening to all forms of electronic dance music in my free time!

In this blog I will write editorials on changes in the I.T industry and maintain a work journal of tips and guides from experiences in the field that I find worthwhile sharing. Please feel free to join in on the discussion.

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.